


In The Garden, You'll Find Something Waiting

by UnspokenWords



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Bullying, Childhood Friends, Enchanted - Freeform, Enchanter Lance, Fantasy, Fantasy AU, Hurt/Comfort, Klance Forever Autumn Special 2019, M/M, Magic, Pet Names, TW // MENTION OF ATTEMPTED DEATH, TW // MENTION OF ATTEMPTED DROWNING, Witch Lance, garden
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2021-02-08 13:20:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21476665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnspokenWords/pseuds/UnspokenWords
Summary: Lance has a garden. In his garden, grow herbs and spices and other ingredients for his enchantments. It’s not like he could just conjure anything out of thin air, Lance is human. He had to forge his bond. He had to work from scratch to become an enchanter. If he lost his magic, he would be devastated. Magic is the one thing that makes Lance feel alive, makes him feel good. Lance never wants to feel lifeless again. Never wants to feel like he did when he lost his first garden.Lance wonders what happened to his old garden. The one he had to leave behind all those years ago.Lance decides to visit his old garden. He finds something he left in the garden all those years ago. Or rather, someone he left behind.
Relationships: Keith & Lance (Voltron), Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 119





	In The Garden, You'll Find Something Waiting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lvecean](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lvecean/gifts).

> Hey, I wrote this for an exchange on Twitter, and for a wonderful friend Cat! She wrote a great Klunk work for the exchange, so go check her out! 
> 
> Anyway, the prompt Cat gave me for my fic was "enchanted". So, this is what I came up with!

Lance has a garden. Of course, there’s no way he wouldn’t have a garden, he needs to grow herbs and spices and other ingredients for his enchantments. It’s not like he could just conjure anything out of thin air, after all, he wasn’t born with a connection to magic like the elves and fairies and other mythical beings. Lance is human, he had to forge his bond. He had to work from scratch to become an enchanter.

So, he would never let anything in this garden get hurt because if he lost his plants, he would lose his magic. He uses his plants to make his potions, his serums, his energy sources. Lance uses his plants to store energy in his crystals, so he can cast spells in a pinch. If he lost that magic, he would be devastated. Magic is the one thing that makes him feel alive, makes him feel good. Lance never wants to feel lifeless again. Never wants to feel like he did when he lost his first garden.

Lance wonders what happened to his old garden, the one back in his home village. The one his family was forced to leave because of the villagers.

Lance knows this better than everyone, knows that humans are always scared of what they can not control. He knows his own kind. He knows that if they could have a scapegoat for all of their problems, they would blame that person in a heartbeat.

For his old village, their scapegoat was Lance. When they started blaming Lance for all of the town’s problems, Lance and his family had to leave. It was too much for them. He’s glad they left. He went through too much there learning magic. Lance still finds it hard to go near water. He’s glad he lives in the forest by himself now. He’s glad that the nearest village is one with other enchanters and mystical beings, not humans.

But Lance can’t help but wonder if he should go back. If he should go back there and see what happened to the village now, if he should see what happened to his old garden, to his old house. Maybe there’s a kid there like him, one who is being bullied for magic. Or maybe it’s better.

But Lance doubts that they’ve changed. So he pushes the thought aside, just as he always does, and decides to keep tending to his plants and to his garden.

* * *

But the thought keeps coming back. Lance doesn’t know why, but it _ keeps coming back_. When he’s in town, talking to Pidge about trading for ingredients, the thought comes back to him. When he’s talking to Hunk about cauldrons and the best type for each type of potion or spell or enchantment, the thought comes back to him. 

When Lance is practicing his glamour enchantment, the thought comes back to him. But this time, it stays. Lance could go back under a glamour. He could go back disguised as someone else. No one would know him, no one would suspect him going back.

Lance decides to do it. Lance decides he’s going to go back under a glamour. And that’s exactly what he does.

He’s not surprised that nothing has changed. Every building is the same. The people in each building are the same. There are new people, new kids, but everything else is the same. The shops open and close at the same time, run by the same people, selling the same things.

But one thing has changed: his old house. It’s overgrown, vines and other plants overtaking the building. He doubts anyone has been living here, especially when it looks like this.

“You’re not from around here, are you?”

Lance turns around at the voice, the feeling of ice going through his veins. He knows what the village did to outsiders who tried to stay their welcome. Not to mention, it’s night, and that’s when their most dangerous sides come out.

But, Lance recognizes the person he sees. His old school teacher, before he had to leave. They look older now. He wonders if they even cared about him.

“Anyone from around here would know not to go near the old McClain house. The son put a curse on the house before the family left the village, so it’s dangerous to go anywhere near it.”

Lance didn’t put a curse on anything. He was only a kid when he had to leave, he didn’t even know dark magic. He would never use dark magic anyway.

“Why did they leave?” he asks, looking at the place he grew up in. He knows why, but he wants to know what they’ll say. What lies they’ve spread about his family, about him, what they’ve done to hide their evil acts. How they’ve justified it.

“Who knows?” they say. Lance knows they know why. Lance remembers trying to tell the teacher about the bullying, and they didn’t listen. 

“One day,” they continue, “after all the enchantments that the son cast on the town, messing up the agriculture and the water, they just skipped. Must’ve not wanted to take responsibility for their actions and fix it.”

That’s not true at all. But Lance can’t get angry, he’s supposed to be a stranger. He can’t get angry, can’t yell at them, can’t tell them the truth. He knows they won’t listen anyway.

“Oh,” he says, instead of trying to stand up for himself, and his old teacher leaves, walking back towards the center of town.

So, Lance is alone, standing in front of his own house. Maybe he didn’t think this plan through enough. Is he just supposed to _ walk in _ and hope no one sees him? It’s dark enough that it would be hard to see him, but like... what if he gets caught?

Lance decides to just run into the house as fast as he can. The wood is old and creaks a bunch, so maybe this wasn’t the best idea, but Lance’s ideas aren’t always the best and no one_ always _ has the best ideas.

But, Lance somehow makes it inside, and he’s breathing a little hard, but it’s okay. His glamour is fading, but that’s okay. Everything is okay, nothing is wrong at all.

Lance looks up, and the house looks exactly the same as when they left. Everything is in the same place. They haven’t been touched at all. It looks like he just left, but at the same time, everything is different. 

The plants have made their home here. They grow over every surface, crowding around the areas with light. They grow on the windchimes, covering the stained glass in the design. They grow in Lance’s old beakers and through his first alchemy set, the liquid that used to be in there long gone. They grow up his sisters’ bunk bed, up the lamps and decorations on the wall. They grow over and around Lance’s old moonstone, the one he used to hold outside in his garden at night, letting it charge as he wished for the bullies to stop.

Lance can see that the plants came from the garden. The back door is still open, from when they ran away into the night, and the plants in the garden are the same as the plants in the house. He can see some of the vines in the floorboards, sneaking into the crevices. 

Lance walks out the back door, into his garden. He never really expected that his plants would still be growing, let alone taking over the whole house. There’s no way his protection spell as a kid would be that good, but it’s somehow still standing, growing well.

Speaking of spells, Lance’s glamour fades. He’s lucky he brought his power crystals, so he can use a glamour enchantment again when he leaves. But, here he is, in his old garden, looking at everything he left behind and—

“Lance?”

Lance turns around to where the voice came from, but he doesn’t see anyone there. Why would there be anyone in his old garden anyway? Lance thinks that maybe he imagined it, that there’s no way that anyone is here, but then someone walks out from behind the tree.

And Lance... Lance has never seen anyone like him. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s glowing, but Lance really doesn’t think that’s it. Maybe it’s that his eyes are purple, but Lance doesn’t think it’s that either. 

Lance has just never seen anyone as enchanting as him. He can’t pull his eyes away from him, can’t look away from the man. Can’t look away from the man wearing his father’s old cloak and pants. Can’t look away from the black hair and purple eyes and glow he just seems to have around him and the scar on his cheek and—

Wait a second, why does this man know his name? And why is he in his old house and his old garden? And why does he seem familiar?

There’s no way he should be familiar to Lance, after all, he’s never seen anyone like him, but somehow, he feels like he knows him. Like he remembers black hair and purple eyes, but he doesn’t remember someone glowing, someone with that scar.

But Lance doesn’t have time to think about that, he has to think about the man in the garden that knows his name, has to think about what to do, can’t think about why he looks familiar.

First, Lance needs to protect himself, needs to make sure the man can’t leave. He needs a trap spell. So, Lance sticks his hand in his pocket, grabs his crystals, and uses his other hand to cast a trap. The trap works, Lance can see that he’s trapped in the invisible bubble. Good. 

Next, Lance needs to question him, needs to know how he got here and why he’s here and _ why he knows Lance. _ So, Lance grabs a bottle from his bag, the bottle of truth serum, and he throws it on the ground at the man’s feet. He sees the thin blue smoke rise, sees it go clear in the bubble. Good.

Lance closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. The man is in the bubble, has breathed in the truth serum. Lance is safe, which means that he can get to the bottom of this whole mess. Everything is gonna be okay, so long as Lance can figure this out.

“Okay, who are you and why do you know my name?”

The man ignores him, and instead, slowly reaches towards the trap. His finger touches it, then his whole hand.

“I asked you a question,” Lance says.

“I guess you got better at enchantments, huh?”

“Why would you know that? How do you know me? How are you resisting the truth serum?”

“Oh, you know that truth serums make you tell the truth. They don’t make you answer questions.”

The man... is right. Truth serums don’t do that. But Lance doesn’t like how this man is acting like he _ knows _ him. No one in this village knows _ anything _ about Lance.

Lance clenches his hands into fists, grinds his teeth.

“_You _ don’t get to talk to me like you know me. You’re a _ stranger _ to me.”

The man’s eyes widen. His hands drop from the trap.

“You really don’t recognize me, do you? Should’ve realized you didn’t come back for me.” The man crosses his arms, his hands holding himself.

“What do you mean?” Lance didn’t come back for him? Who _ was _ he anyway?

“Of course, you run away and leave your ‘best friend’ Keith behind for _ years._”

Keith?

* * *

Hours pass. Lance doesn’t know how it happened, but he’s sitting down with Keith, still talking.

Keith was his childhood friend, in a way. Keith was Lance’s imaginary friend as a kid. When Lance was bullied, Keith was always there for him. Keith would threaten to beat up the bullies when they made Lance cry. Keith would lay down with him and tell him that they just didn’t understand, that they’re stupid and that he wishes he could make them understand.

Keith was the one who beat up the bullies and scared them off when they tried to drown Lance in the river.

Apparently, since Lance would cry with his moonstone when he was thinking of Keith, those strong emotions made him real. That’s how Keith beat the bullies back in the day.

Keith was real, and Lance left him behind.

But Lance wasn’t going to make that mistake again. He refused to. 

So, Lance takes the moonstone with him. He uses his crystals to cast his glamour enchantment and takes the moonstone home with him. He takes _ Keith _ with him.

And Lance’s life changes. He has a friend at home with him now. He has a friend who isn’t in town, that isn’t Pidge or Hunk or Allura.

And Keith is... nice. He’s closed off still and doesn’t seem to fully trust Lance again, but Keith is nice. Lance really likes his smile and his laugh. He eats Lance’s cooking and tries his best to help out and he’s extremely helpful when it comes to enchantments.

But he’s really just nice to have around as company. He has full reign of the house and can do whatever he wants. Lance got Hunk to build him his own room, with a closet and door and everything. It’s got a desk and lights and everything he could need. Lance helped get him new clothes, and now Keith has a full closet full of clothes. Keith also has a bag that he usually carries his own moonstone in.

Lance doesn’t want Keith to worry about being left behind again. If Keith carries his own moonstone, he can go anywhere he wants to. Keith likes going with him to the town when he needs to buy things. He doesn’t talk much to other people there, but he tries. 

Lance has taken to calling Keith “moonlight.” Keith _ did _ come from his moonstone, and he _ does _ glow like moonlight. Keith didn’t really understand when Lance called him that at first. He had to explain what pet names were to Keith. But, Keith blushes whenever Lance calls him “moonlight” now.

Lance thinks Keith is cute.

But, Lance is just practicing his enchantments, and Keith is learning how to cook and do other things, and Lance is happy. He sometimes feels this weird feeling in this chest, something unexplained, like he wants something _ more, _ but Lance doesn’t know what that is. What he wants _ more _ of. So, Lance is happy.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic says completed because it can be read as a one-shot, but I want to make it a series, where they'll be more in the future! I had a lot of fun writing this, and my mind went overboard considering the amount of time I had to write it, but it was fun!
> 
> The title is from the song "Everything Stays" from Adventure Time, which is also the song I listened to while writing this!
> 
> If you enjoyed this or if you didn't, please leave a comment below! Or, find me on Twitter!
> 
> Twitter: [@_keithtrash_](https://twitter.com/_keithtrash_)


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